Iran's Supreme Leader calls for more enrichment capacity

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country needs to significantly increase its number of centrifuges, underlining a gap in positions between Tehran and world powers as they hold talks aimed at clinching a nuclear accord.        

Iran and world powers have less than two weeks to reach an agreement on the future scope of Iran's uranium enrichment program and other issues if they are to meet a self-imposed July 20 deadline for a deal.       

Iran's enrichment capacity lies at the center of the nuclear stalemate and is seen as the hardest issue to resolve. Iran insists it needs to expand its capacity to refine uranium to fuel a planned network of atomic energy plants. The powers say Tehran must sharply reduce the capacity to prevent it being able to quickly produce a nuclear bomb.           

"Their aim is that we accept a capacity of 10,000 separative work units (SWUs), which is equivalent to 10,000 centrifuges of the older type that we already have. Our officials say we need 190,000 SWU. Perhaps this is not a need this year or in two years or five years, but this is the country's absolute need," Khamenei said in a statement published on his website late on Monday.

"The P5+1 started bargaining with 500 SWUs, then 1,000 SWUs enrichment capacity. Now they want to convince us to (accept) 10,000 SWUs," he added.

Tehran says its program is solely for civilian purposes such as electricity generation and denies any plan to build an atomic bomb.         

Iran now has more than 19,000 installed enrichment centrifuges, mostly old-generation IR-1 machines, with about 10,000 of them operating to increase the concentration of uranium's fissile isotope U-235.            

In 2006, when the U.N. Security Council imposed its first  sanctions resolution against the country, Iran had a few hundred centrifuges that it was testing. Iran has since expanded the number sharply until it stopped doing that under the November 24 interim nuclear deal agreed between Iran and the world powers.
 
Iran's supreme leader Khamenei also said the United States and Israel were playing "good cop, bad cop" to intimidate his country into making concessions on the nuclear dispute with the West.       

"They make it seem like Israel wants to attack, but America is stopping it: the good cop, bad cop trick," Khamenei told senior statesmen at an iftar (fast-breaking supper during the holy month of Ramadan) function. "But I say out-loud: the reason they are not attacking is because it is too costly. The enemy has no other option at its disposal but make threats and impose sanctions."        

Israel has repeatedly threatened to attack Iranian nuclear sites, and been skeptical about the current diplomatic drive by Western allies to persuade Iran to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for relief in economic sanctions imposed over the years as penalty.      

In a boost to President Rouhani, who has been accused of being too soft toward the West, Khamenei said: "All should know that I support his government and use everything in my power to help it. I have trust in our negotiating team and am sure they will not give in on the rights of this nation."